The concept of remote working is slowly but surely being introduced by more businesses. I’ve been working remotely myself over the past 2 months.

I don’t think I need to tell you that it’s certainly something that employees like since it gives them so much more flexibility to how they approach their jobs.

Employers, meanwhile, can save money by allowing remote working and it can also radically change how they recruit new staff. I believe employers are finally starting to realize that they don’t need to completely control their employees and will have a more productive staff by allowing for some flexibility.

Source: Powwownow Remote Working The Way Forward

CityIndex has put together an infographic showcasing some of the data they’ve recently collected:

• Over the last 10 years the number of female traders has risen by 1000%
• Occupations of part-time female traders vary wildly, but the most popular are house wives, teachers, secretaries and those working in administration.
• CityIndex’ most successful female trader is 51 and has profited over £1,200,000.
• Their youngest active female trader is a 19-year old shop assistant. She has made a total profit of £11,222.
• A contract teacher earning £32,000 a year has profited over £158,000 with her account

If you become injured at work and find that said injury stops you from earning a living, it can be hard to cope with. You’ll wonder whether you’ll ever be able to work again and how long you’re going to remain injured for. This is where taking out an income protection insurance policy could prove to be very useful. They pay out if you suffer an illness or injury which prevents you from working for a long period or until the age of 65.

If you work in an environment where you’re at risk of being injured, no matter how safe you feel, having income protection insurance is very important. While you might think that such incidents are rare, even in manufacturing or physically demanding jobs like building and plumbing, it’s important to have some form of safeguard against any accident at work claims or industrial diseases. While deciding to compare health insurance could be useful if you face medical bills, income protection insurance could help with so much more costs such as loss of income, mortgage payments and living costs for you and your family.

While you might think that taking out such a policy will be expensive no matter which insurer you decide to go with, it’s possible to make savings on income protection insurance payments. Comparing the prices of different policies is a great way of finding out what you can get for your money, and you may find that one insurer will offer the same level of cover as a rival company for much less.

Another way in which you could save money is to minimise the length of time you will be eligible to receive benefit payments for. If you’re sure that any long-term injury will last for less than a couple of years, you could restrict your benefit period to 2 years.

When you have a growing family, the home that felt big when it was just the two of you can feel cramped as soon as you add a little one or two.

Then comes the difficult decision.

Do you try to find a bigger house or you do stay in your house and try to make it work?

With a bigger house comes bigger expenses. Not only do you have a bigger mortgage, but your insurance and taxes will be higher and it costs more to heat and cool.

What if you put that extra money into your existing home. What options are out there to add more space to your home that don’t cost an arm and a leg?

One option is to add a sun room or a conservatory. Adding a conservatory gives you an extra living space, but doesn’t cost nearly as much as a traditional add-on.

These rooms are cheaper because they’re typically are not connected to the central heat and air system.

They can also be significantly cheaper because you can actually build them yourself. There are several companies out there that offer a self build conservatory kit.

These are prefabricated rooms that come in separate pieces that you assemble yourself – kind of like buying a room from Ikea.

Obviously, you need to be a little handy to put one of these together. But, you don’t need to be a full-fledged contractor.

It’s not a solution that will work for everyone, but it is an interesting option to add more space to your home on the cheap.

For 2 1/2 years I worked for a property management company. Going into it, I thought it was a great job. You see, I love real estate as an investment. I had this plan to climb the property ladder and build a portfolio of rental properties.

When the opportunity came up to work for a property management company I thought it would be a great way to my hands dirty learning the ins and outs of managing rental property without the risk of actually owning the property.

I ran the whole show – everything from advertising to tenant screening to rent collection to evictions. It was good way to learn. I had my hands in every part of the process. The downside is, I had to deal with the headaches that came with every part of the proces.

One of the biggest headaches was dealing with evictions and property damage. Those two usually went hand in hand. It’s rare that a tenant that pays their bills damages your property.

I don’t know if they caused damage because they didn’t care or if they were vindictive because we were trying to collect rent.

The worst case was a house we managed in a not-so-nice part of town. The investor bought it for a whole $27,000 and I think he may have overpaid for it…The house was a dump.

There was a tenant in the property when he purchased it, but they only made one rent payment to us. After that it was a 3 month process of chasing them down and finally evicting them.

When I got into the house…holy cow…

It was disgusting.

I think it would have been better if they burned the house down before they left.

I took a step in the door and the carpet started crawling. Roaches literally covered the entire floor. There was a half-eaten, moldy birthday cake on the kitchen table. Animals had been kept in the house and apparently were never let outside.

It took an exterminator 7 trips to get rid of all of the roaches. All of the carpet had to be replaced. There were several places in the sub-floor that had to be replaced because of the urine. The entire house had to be sealed and painted to cover the smell.

At the end of the day, the investor spent nearly $10,000 rehabing the house – more than 1/3 of his initial investment.

That scared me away from real estate for a long time. It seemed like there wasn’t a good way for an investor to protect themselves.

I’ve come to learn that’s completely wrong. There are a number of ways to protect yourself. A situation like that should never have happened.

First, do your due diligence before buying an occupied property. If he would have personally inspected the property, he would have noticed that the interior needed a significant amount of work.

Second, don’t buy a property on the wrong side of town unless you’re willing to be a slum lord. I don’t know about you, but I don’t like fearing for my safety when I visit the property.

Third, consider landlord’s insurance. It’s an insurance policy that covers both accidental and malicious damage caused by tenants. You can check out a landlord insurance quote and see that it’s actually not that expensive.

Having insurance allows you to even out your cash flow. You have a small payment each month, but you won’t have the risk of a large expense due to damage that could kill your profit for the entire year or longer.

Real estate can be a huge risk and a huge headache if not done right; however, if you do your due diligence and offset risk using insurance, it can be a great investment.

What would happen to your family’s finances if your died today? Would they be able to pay the bills without your income? If you have someone who is depending in your income to eat, then you need life insurance.

Life insurance is designed to protect your family in the event of an early death. We’re all going to die; the question is when.

Since the purpose of life insurance is to provide for your family after you are gone, you need enough insurance to replace your lost income.

Let me also mention this, there are many different types of life insurance out there. The purpose of life insurance is to pool the risk of an early death. It shouldn’t be used as an investment vehicle (*cough* whole life insurance *cough*). To prove for your family after your death, all you need is a term policy.

The general rule of thumb is to have 10 times your annual income. Many people know this rule and many people use it as a guideline, but most don’t really think about why.

The why is very important. If you don’t understand why, then you can’t make an informed decision. Based on your situation, is 10 times your income enough? It is too much?

The amount of insurance you need depends on the number of years that your income is needed after you are gone.

Let’s Run the Math

If you were to die during the term of your policy, the death benefit would be paid in a lump sum. Now your beneficiaries could just put that money in a bank account, pay their expenses as they normally would out of that account and in approximately 10 years the money would be gone. It could be done that way, but it’s a terrible plan.

Anytime you receive a large lump sum of money and don’t have an immediate need for it, it should be invested. Ideally, an investment ladder would be set up where the funds needed in the next few months would be held in an easily accessible account (likely with a lower rate of return) and funds needed years down the road would be put in a long term investment vehicle (with a higher rate of return).

With a 4% rate of return, the proceeds would last 12.8 years.

With a 6% rate of return, the proceeds would last 15.3 years.

With a 8% rate of return, the proceeds would last 20.3 years.

Now these are conservative estimates. I’ve based this on monthly withdraws equaling your pre-tax income. In reality, your beneficiaries should only need to withdraw your post-tax income – what your take-home pay is.

However, I’ve also excluded inflation to simplify the calculation. In the end, these two factors may cancel out. These numbers are meant to be more of a general guideline.

How Much Life Insurance Should You Have?

Is 10 times your annual income enough? At a minimum, your beneficiaries should be able to achieve a 4% rate of return on the proceeds. Will your children still be at home after 13 years? After they are able to support themselves, can your spouse support their self? If you are a stay-at-home parent, can your spouse afford child-care and other help as needed?

If you are unsure, I would always be on the safe side. Term life insurance is cheap.

Regardless, if you don’t have life insurance now and you have people depending in your income to survive, you need life insurance. Don’t waste time because you’re indecisive. You can always make changes to your policies later.